A Lucky Day

      Today was her lucky day. She was late for the bus. But the bus was late, too. So she didn't miss her bus. She was late for work. But her boss was late, too. So her boss didn't know that she was late. She didn't have any cash for lunch. But her friend had a two-for-one lunch coupon. So she got a free lunch. Her boss was feeling a little sick. He told everyone to take the afternoon off. She went to the park. A green piece of paper was under the park bench. She picked it up. It was a $5 bill. She looked around. Where did the money come from? There was no one around. She was the only one in the park. There were some birds and squirrels in the park. But this was not their money. This was her money. It was her lucky money. She went across the street to the liquor store. The lottery jackpot was worth $10 million. She bought five lottery tickets. She knew that one of them would be lucky. This was her lucky day.

A Bad Economy

      The economy is bad. People are out of work. People are losing their jobs. People are getting laid off. People are getting fired. People want to work. But nobody is hiring workers. Nobody needs workers. Everyone has less money. Everyone is spending less. Everyone is buying less. Consumers are not buying anything extra. They are buying only what they need. They are not buying new cars. They are keeping their old cars. They are not buying new homes. They are staying in their old homes. They are not buying new clothes. They are wearing their old clothes. They are not taking vacations. They are staying home. They are not going to restaurants. They are doing things that are cheap. They go to the library. They go to the park. They go to the museum. They go to the beach. They stay home and watch TV. Life is hard. Life is tough. Everyone hopes the economy will get better soon. They hope the bad times will go away soon.

Try to Tell the Truth

      Your grandma told you not to lie. Your grandpa told you not to lie. Your mother said to tell the truth. Your father said to tell the truth. You try to tell the truth. You try to tell the truth all the time. But you cannot tell the truth all the time. No one can tell the truth all the time. Everyone lies sometimes. Your mother lies sometimes. Your father lies sometimes. Your teacher lies sometimes. You lie sometimes. You lie to be polite. You lie to protect someone you love. You lie to protect yourself. You lie when you get caught. You lie to get something you want. You lie to be popular. You lie to avoid work. You lie to your family. You lie to your friends. You lie to strangers. It's normal to lie. Some people say that lying is bad. They say that lying is evil. They say that they never lie. That is a big lie. Of course they lie sometimes! Everyone lies sometimes. Lying is like laughing; it is part of life.

The Winner

        Victor never won at anything. He played Monopoly. He lost at Monopoly. He played Scrabble. He lost at Scrabble. He played checkers. He lost at checkers. He played chess. He lost at chess. He played tennis. He lost at tennis. His dad told him not to worry. "Someone has to win, and someone has to lose," Dad said. "But I'm always the loser," Victor said. "I'm never the winner." His dad said, "Don't worry. These are games. You are playing games. Games are not important." Victor asked, "What is important? I thought games are important." His dad said that being a good person is important. He said the most important thing is to be a good person. He said that Victor was a good person. Victor was kind. Victor was polite. Victor was friendly. "Thank you, Dad," Victor said. "I am a good person, so I am a winner!"

The Birthday Cake

       It was Jenny's fourth birthday. She was four years old. Her mom baked a cake for her. Her mom baked a chocolate cake for her. The cake had two layers. Her mom put vanilla frosting on the bottom layer. Her mom put vanilla frosting on the top layer. Her mom put vanilla frosting all around the cake. Now the chocolate cake was completely white. Her mom put four pink candles on top of the cake. Her dad lit the four pink candles. The four pink candles were lit. Jenny's mom and dad sat down next to Jenny. They sang Happy Birthday to her. "Happy birthday to you," they sang. Jenny sang with her mom and dad. "Happy birthday to me," she sang. Her mom said, "Now make a wish and blow out the candles." Jenny made a wish. Then she blew out all four pink candles.

A Thief on the Sidewalk

          She looked at the man walking along the sidewalk next to the nice houses. He didn't live in any of those houses. She had seen this man several times before. He looked like a criminal. She knew not to judge a book by its cover, but this man was no good. She drove by him. He looked at her car as she drove by. She continued driving. She watched him in her rear view mirror. She got to the corner and stopped. She continued to watch him walking in her direction. Suddenly, he turned left up a driveway. A red SUV was parked in the driveway right next to the sidewalk. She saw him walk up to the driver's door. He returned to the sidewalk and continued walking in her direction. What was that all about, she wondered. Then she realized that he had tested the door to see if it was locked. He is a criminal, she thought. That's what he does. He just walks through our neighborhoods looking for cars to break into. She called the police. She described him. The officer said he knew who the man was. Residents called two or three times a week to report him walking by. But the police couldn't arrest him for walking around. They had to catch him with stolen goods. "But he was testing that SUV door to see if it was unlocked," she said. "I'm sorry," said the officer. "That's not against the law. If you see him actually steal something, give us a call."

The Music on the Hill

by Saki

           Sylvia Seltoun ate her breakfast in the morning-room at Yessney with a pleasant sense of ultimate victory, such as a fervent Ironside might have permitted himself on the morrow of Worcester fight. She was scarcely pugnacious by temperament, but belonged to that more successful class of fighters who are pugnacious by circumstance. Fate had willed that her life should be occupied with a series of small struggles, usually with the odds slightly against her, and usually she had just managed to come through winning. And now she felt that she had brought her hardest and certainly her most important struggle to a successful issue. To have married Mortimer Seltoun, "Dead Mortimer" as his more intimate enemies called him, in the teeth of the cold hostility of his family, and in spite of his unaffected indifference to women, was indeed an achievement that had needed some determination and adroitness to carry through; yesterday she had brought her victory to its concluding stage by wrenching her husband away from Town and its group of satellite watering-places and "settling him down," in the vocabulary of her kind, in this remote wood-girt manor farm which was his country house. 

           "You will never get Mortimer to go," his mother had said carpingly, "but if he once goes he'll stay; Yessney throws almost as much a spell over him as Town does. One can understand what holds him to Town, but Yessney--" and the dowager had shrugged her shoulders. 

           Of Mortimer she saw very little; farm and woods and trout- streams seemed to swallow him up from dawn till dusk. Once, following the direction she had seen him take in the morning, she came to an open space in a nut copse, further shut in by huge yew trees, in the centre of which stood a stone pedestal surmounted by a small bronze figure of a youthful Pan. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, but her attention was chiefly held by the fact that a newly cut bunch of grapes had been placed as an offering at its feet. Grapes were none too plentiful at the manor house, and Sylvia snatched the bunch angrily from the pedestal. Contemptuous annoyance dominated her thoughts as she strolled slowly homeward, and then gave way to a sharp feeling of something that was very near fright; across a thick tangle of undergrowth a boy's face was scowling at her, brown and beautiful, with unutterably evil eyes. It was a lonely pathway, all pathways round Yessney were lonely for the matter of that, and she sped forward without waiting to give a closer scrutiny to this sudden apparition. It was not till she had reached the house that she discovered that she had dropped the bunch of grapes in her flight. 

           "I saw a youth in the wood today," she told Mortimer that evening, "brown-faced and rather handsome, but a scoundrel to look at. A gipsy lad, I suppose."